In approving Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham's recommendation
to open Yucca Mountain as the nation's first long-term nuclear
repository, President George W. Bush says that moving ahead with
the repository "is necessary to protect public safety, health,
and the nation's security."

Nevada's Governor, Kenny Guinn, objects. He maintains that
the national-security aspect "is an absurd invention of the
nuclear industry and an opportunistic use of the tragedies of
September 11."

That is not only dangerously shortsighted - it's wrong.

The Governor forgets that, in light of September 11, the main
danger lies in retaining the radioactive material at reactor sites
in cooling pools, which are somewhat vulnerable to terrorist attack.

That risk should not be exaggerated, but it is far from "absurd."

As put by Secretary Abraham, "More than 161 million people
live within 75 miles of one or more of these sites. They should
be able to withstand current terrorist threats, but that may not
remain the case in the future. These materials would be far better
secured in a deep underground repository at Yucca Mountain."

Sure, the nuclear industry stands to benefit from the opening
of Yucca Mountain - but so do the rest of us. It will take years
to complete the job, but we should start moving the spent fuel
away from densely populated areas as soon as we can.

The opponents of forging ahead say they are afraid there might
be a leak from the repository thousands of years hence. That fear
is utterly unrealistic. Nevada already has far more plutonium
and fission products underground - totally unconfined, and posing
no threat to people - than would ever be expected to leak from
the Yucca Mountain repository. At least four tons of plutonium
remains at the Nevada nuclear test site as bomb-test residue,
along with a much greater amount of radioactivity due to fission
products.

Governor Guinn has vowed that "Nevada will now pursue
every means available to ensure that the laws of science and the
nation ultimately prevail." And so it should. But the Governor
has been misinformed.

The laws of science do not support his position.

The laws of science and logic say that one should compare risk
to the public of the various options for handling the waste. That
has been done, and Secretary Abraham has finally made the correct
decision, in accordance with the law of the land.

Furthermore, the laws of science say that spent reactor fuel
is not really "waste." The material is excellent fuel
for advanced reactors - ones that can consume almost all of the
long-lived radioactive isotopes, producing waste that only needs
to be isolated for less than 500 years instead of more than 10,000.

We can stop worrying about transporting spent fuel, too. Compared
with what we now live with, the risk is trivial. Between 1982
and 1992, spills of gasoline and other chemicals in U.S. transportation
accidents caused 107 deaths, over 1,400 injuries and evacuation
of more that 13,000 people.

Nuclear shipments have been involved in traffic mishaps too,
but as far as we know there has never, ever, been even one death
or injury due to radiation released in a transportation accident
- anywhere in the world. Passing through Illinois, the state we
live in, there will be a daily grand total of maybe five shipments
of radioactive waste, in extremely rugged containers. Big deal.
There are probably a thousand times as many gasoline deliveries.

The go-ahead for Yucca Mountain should have been given years
ago.

Instead of feeding the NIMBY - "not in my back yard"
- syndrome, Governor Guinn should welcome the federal money, high-paying
jobs, and other benefits that opening Yucca Mountain will bring
to Nevada.

That's a good return for hosting a facility with entirely negligible
risk.

# # #

Gerald Marsh is a physicist who served with the U.S. START
delegation and was a consultant to the Office of the Chief of
Naval Operations on strategic nuclear policy and technology for
many years. He is on the advisory board of the Center for The
National Public Policy Research. Comments may be sent to [email protected].

George Stanford is a nuclear reactor physicist, now retired
from Argonne National Laboratory after a career of experimental
work pertaining to power-reactor safety.